Green Day released American Idiot in 2004 and further cemented themselves as modern punk icons. But casual listeners may not know that there was supposed to be another album after Warning from 2000.
Cigarettes and Valentines was meant to be released in 2003. It was recorded in six months, consisted of 16 tracks plus two additional songs with potential, and was almost finished and ready to go. However, that summer, Green Day’s master tapes for Cigarettes and Valentines were stolen from the studio.
The band faced the dilemma of re-recording everything they’d worked so hard on for half a year. Or, they could scratch the entire album, write it off as a loss, and start over.
American Idiot was born out of the ashes of Cigarettes and Valentines. Green Day has stated that elements of the lost album made it onto the new one. This is evident in the song “Homecoming.” Additionally, they shared that bonus tracks “Everyone’s Breaking Down” and “Just Another Year” were reminiscent of that album. Another bonus, “Too Much Too Soon,” turned out to be originally recorded during the Cigarettes and Valentines sessions.
Green Day’s lost album was a change of pace from previous two releases
Green Day released Nimrod in 1997 and Warning in 2000 at a time where they were experimenting with a more rock heavy, folk-punk sound. They had stepped away from the fast-paced, brash, hard punk of their youth at that time. But Cigarettes and Valentines was allegedly a return to that style.
“We’ve had a nice break from making hard and fast music and it’s made us want to do it again,” said bassist Mike Dirnt, according to the 2006 book Nobody Likes You by Marc Spitz.
This decision carried over to American Idiot. When the tapes were stolen, the band later revealed that it was a “blessing in disguise.” According to them, Cigarettes and Valentines wasn’t actually “maximum Green Day” after all.
“Those are really good songs,” said Dirnt about Cigarettes and Valentines, “but we got these over here, and we kinda felt like, should we put out these, and wait three or four years to put out these other songs and chase this thing that we kind of got going on over here?”
Ultimately, Green Day put the old album on the back burner. They instead decided to “chase this thing” that turned out to be American Idiot.
Photo by Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
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